alexland

Am I old school for thinking that giving kids complete freedom isn't the best way to do things? I like a lot of the ideas being used at these schools, but as a kid I definitely didn't know what I wanted to do or learn most of the time, and having some guidance to show me different subjects was a huge help in nurturing curiosity and passion for them.

Even now I prefer having someone with some experience helping me along when I learn a new skill/tool/language, so I can ask dumb questions and learn more efficiently.

I love eating and the social aspect of sharing a meal with others, so I can't see myself having Soylent in this capacity whatsoever, but I would definitely like to try it as a breakfast and quick lunch alternative. I have the bad habit of rushing in the morning and rarely eating, so Soylent seems like a great fit.

It's also interesting to realize that the food most people eat really is not very healthy, even when it consists of mostly healthy ingredients. It seems like most of the people I know probably don't get nearly as much fibre as they should, so a product like Soylent could be a beneficial addition to many people's daily nutrient intake.

I agree that launching in the US is a bad idea for the reasons you mention, and I'm hopeful that more companies try starting outside of the US. The potential is huge, and there is a sizeable market for this kind of thing that is unfortunately overlooked by most.

As right as you are about the American market, it's extremely annoying that the rest of the world doesn't get to use services like Google Wallet and Apple Pay. In Canada, I've been tapping to pay for years, yet there are no popular 3rd party services to use my phone for paying.

So sure, it'll be stillborn in the US. But I don't give a crap about the US, you guys get enough of the cool stuff. This is a sweet deal for every other country with the infrastructure in place. This is a great idea for those countries, and definitely not a waste of effort in my eyes.

I'm on OSX, I've tried it on both Firefox (36) and Chrome (41.0.2272.118 (64-bit)).

Love the idea, but I'm having trouble getting the audio to play. After searching for and adding songs, they are listed but the "There are no requests" message is still displayed, and nothing is playing. Am I missing something?

Do you have any information to share on how much it will cost to use the service (with/without a Paperweight)? Is there a monthly subscription option, or is it pay-as-you-go?

I also use Skim, it works really well. A pretty cool feature is the back and forward buttons, that hold your page if you skip through large chunks. For example, if I use the table of contents (Cmd + Shift + T) to go to the answers section, I can press back to get back to the question I was on. Then forward brings me to the answers once again.

That's basically my textbook workflow 90% of the time.

I feel the complete opposite for all of the college textbooks I've used (although all of my textbooks are filled with problems rather than readings).

Using a laptop or e-reader to read textbooks is awesome for a couple of reasons. First off, having multiple textbooks doesn't weigh anything, and I can carry them around at all times. Secondly, when doing assignments and the like, I can bookmark the answer section in the back, and flip back and forth between questions and answers arguably faster than I could with a paper book. Finally, the best part of electronic books is the ability to search through it. Every definition in the book is a Ctrl+F away.

So maybe reading books electronically isn't as great when you're doing a lot of actual reading, but in my experience using more math/science textbooks, electronic wins out every time.